ces. The selfish and ambitious also, while they conceal their partial projects under the mask of a love for their country, do homage to the dignity and purity of that principle, which they practically violate. No human institutions can be faultless; but let them not all be censured indiscriminately, because they sometimes from accident have fallen short of their proper use, and sometimes from design have been perverted to mischievous purposes. Patriotism may diminish the evils, which it cannot entirely prevent; and, by putting us in present possession of partial good, it affords aid and encouragement to the future labors of men, who are ambitious to be distinguished as the friends of the human race. It remains for me to notice one objection,' which neither the moralist nor the patriot will presume to treat with indifference. It is said, that the love of our country is not recommended by the authority of Scripture, and that the passions, which it excites, are directly at variance with the spirit of Christian charity. One plain reply to the former part of the objection is, that, though this love is not positively commanded, it is neither expressly nor virtually forbidden. It is, moreover, as we have proved, not only included within the doctrine of universal philanthropy, but is in fact the only practicable method, by which we can hope to fulfil the benevolent intentions of the Gospel. The history of the Jews, who lived under the special government of the Deity, affords illustrious instances of this very patriotism, which is condemned; and the great Author of our religion shed tears of pity and anguish, when he contemplated and predicted the approaching desolation of Jerusalem. The weight of the second part of the objection is wholly removed by the discrimination, which we have made between real and pretended patriotism. We grant, that, from intemperate zeal, or misguided views, the love of our country has sometimes impelled men to the commission of flagrant and pernicious euormities; but has not the same love been productive of actions eminently and permanently favorable to the happiness of individuals, and the safety of communities? Has it not lifted its avenging arm against cruelty and impiety? Has it not protected our coasts from invasion, our hearths from violence, and our altars from profanation? In the dreadful and protracted calamities of war, the meek and the helpless may have been op Shaftesbury's Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor. Soame Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidence of Christianity, p. 46. pressed, the wise and the virtuous may have been sacrificed; but, if the heart of man were utterly callous to the feelings of genuine patriotism, there would have been no safeguard for civil liberty, no vestige of social union, no scope for those arduous and exalted duties, which are prompted by benevolence and enjoined by religion: our tribunals would be thrown down, our temples would be forsaken, and in the sequestered village, and in the crowded city, the sweet voice of peace would be heard no more. Patriotism then, inspired by nature and authorised by reason, is thus hallowed by the sanction of Christianity. The present situation of Europe, however, will of itself be sufficient to furnish practical conviction, that the existence of the sentiment is incompatible with a state of national subjugation. In the real, or even in the apprehended privation of independence, the glory of country, or the well-being of its inhabitants, must be equally delusive and visionary. Commerce and the elegant arts would be neglected, nor could we expect either opportunities or incentives for the calm pursuits of science and philosophy; the mind, by continual irritation, would grow insensible to every charm of domestic virtue, or, by debasement, would be unfitted for every manly enterprise. Such a state, in short, is absolutely hostile to the diffusion, if not to the attainment, of that moral and intellectual improvement among individuals, which facilitates and ensures the general amelioration of society. Political freedom, therefore, should be the aim both of the philanthropist and of the patriot; nor even can the Christian indulge an hope, that those mild and benevolent virtues, which peculiarly characterise his religion, and which are so admirably calculated to bless the human species, should ever reach their full perfection in any country, which is subjected to the dictates of tyranny, or where the free energies of action are overawed by the dread of arbitrary force, or controlled by the encroaching influence of some powerful neighbour. CHARLES PARR BURNEY, A. B. * MERTON COLLEGE, 210 CLASSICAL CRITICISM. An attempt to emend a passage in Catullus., CARM. VI. Ad Flavium. Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo, Quare, quicquid habes boni malique, 5 10 15 Thus is this poem found in the Mss. of Muretus, Statius, Scaliger and Vossius, with this exception; that, ver. 12., Stat. for ni has in; Muretus for tacere, taceres.-Ver. 13. Stat. has et futura panda, and Voss. pandas. Of this passage no sense can be made as it stands. Numerous as the attempts have been to correct or explain it, no emendation, as yet, appears sufficiently satisfactory. In Doering's edit. it stands thus, Nam mi prævalet ista nil tacere. Cur nunc tam latera exfututa pandas, Ni tu quid facias ineptiarum? Muretus and Statius first attempted to alter it: the former proposed making two verses of the three; thus, Nam cur tam latera exfututa pandas, Ni tu quid, &c. and the latter, despairing of being able to discover the genuine language of Catullus, corrected it in this manner; Nam, ni est turpe, volens nihil taceres, Shortly after Scaliger corrected it thus in his first edition, Nam, ni stupra, valet nihil tacere But in his third, and last, edition it stands thus, Nam, ni stupra, valet nihil tacere, (Cur? non tam latera exfututa pandant?) The emendation of Vossius is still closer to the characters of the Mss. Nam ni istapte, valet nihil tacere, Cui non jam latera exfututa pandant and this Vulpius has adopted. But the syllable pte is never added except to ablatives. None of all these are any thing to the purpose. Nam in the first instance is wrong; and if it were not, the whole might be set to rights by a very trifling alteration, Nam mi stupra valet nihil tacere. Cur non tam latera effututa pandam, For it is in vain to conceal your amours from me. Why should I not descant on your emaciated frame, and on all ridiculous foolery? your Here the only deviation from the Mss. is in the words mi stupra, which is closer to the characters of the original than that of Scaliger, who first conjectured stupra. Nec for et, after non, is frequent enough. Of the three following attempts which I made at different times, the latter seems preferable: Num vis ipse loqui, et nihil tacere ? Cur non? cum latera effututa pandant Ipse in opposition to cubile, to pulvinus peræque, to quassa lectu, &c.-and, Nomen fare! valet nihil tacere! or, Num mi effare? valet nihil tacere! Horace, Ode I. 27, may throw some light on this subject. Bracondale, Norwich. D. B. H. P. S. In reply to J. W. of Liverpool, on my proposed emendation of the passage in Livy, I beg leave to remark, that cum and tum are so nearly alike in ancient Mss. that sometimes they cannot be distinguished; n, u and v, are also similar; i and j, are always alike; and in, ni, vi, ui and m, are written alike; and this I have learned from seven years experience in decyphering the most obliterate parchments. I only refer him to Heinsius on Ovid, Met. viii. 703. and xv. 705.— "Inveteratum scribendi vitium mihi videtur, cum litt. c et t in codd., minusculis literis exaratis, tanta sit similitudo, ut oculis vix possint discerni." Bach's Tibullus, p. 21. He objects to the omission of cum before the verb obsiderentur. I refer him to Sallust, B. C. cap. 7. 18. and 20. I need not remind him that he differs from Mr. John Walker, late of Trin. Col. Dublin, whose note on the passage in question runs thus, "Vel transponendæ sunt voces hoc modo, cum peregrinis, &c. vel dicendum has voces cum L. H. exercitu esse glossema librariorum." But I will translate the passage. Then the Romans, driven back into their camp, should have been besieged a second time, devoid of hope, and inferior in strength to the enemy, and perilous had been, &c.-Suis joined with peregrinis copiis, he says, is nugatory and unworthy of the historian: is it nugatory and unworthy of the historian in the preceding chap. but two, cum in fines suos, &c.?" We find suus frequently used by the best writers, where it might, as far as we know, be better omitted. See Vell. Paterc. lib. ii. speaking of Lucretius and Catullus; and again lib. ii. cap. 120. I shall only observe, notwithstanding what J. W. says in the last Number, that, teste se ipso, Dublinii, 1797. the passage is corrupt in all the present editions of Livy. D. B. H, |